Children’s Book Festival Manchester – An Update

I’m delighted to show you a few photographs from the Manchester Children’s Book Festival held today on the 24th of June – an exciting event which many young ones and their parents attended. Opening time and the first ‘customers’ are already here!

Our original display online poster.Members of The Children’s Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, Britain, had an opportunity to be present at this annual event held in the Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU premises, Manchester.

A few of us – Illustrators – had the privilege to showcase three illustrations each. I’m sure you’ll agree that the standard was very high. Illustrations of this caliber already grace many a good children’s book.

We also had a fun activity for youngsters who wanted to try their hand at making spoon puppets which they could put in our little ‘theatre’ and have their photos taken with it. Here are a few photographs capturing the fun moments.

It was quite busy, yet we had opportunity to chat about our work to some of our potential new readers and their parents. Here are a few more moments in time!

Proud to be here for the first time!

I thought these little spoon puppets were very cute. What do you think?

At the moment my feet are killing me, so I’m writing this post sitting in bed with my feet up. It has been a pleasant experience and certainly made my creative juices flowing. One thing I would like to do however, is to try my hand at producing Early Readers and Picture Books, because I saw how much parents and their younger children enjoyed sitting down to read together. I loved watching them!

Don’t forget to COMMENT/FOLLOW if you feel so inclined. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

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Published by Fauna Park Tales

Maretha is a South African Italian, born in a small town called Montagu. She grew up in nearby Worcester in the Western Cape – a town reminiscent of living in Switzerland among the snow-capped mountains.
Worcester had a small library. Young Maretha’s visits were limited to three times a week, because the librarian told her, “You spend too much time with your nose in a book and neglect your school work.”
Nothing much has changed, because she's still a confirmed bookworm who constantly strives to raise more bookworms who enjoy reading, not just as a pleasant past-time, but as an excellent tool to be used when grown-up.
Before immigrating to the UK to settle in Lancashire, Maretha worked as a librarian in a private school in Botswana, where one of her tasks was to encourage children to enjoy reading. That was a labour of love for this bookworm, providing valuable help in carving her own career as a children's author/illustrator. It brought her face to face with the literary industry’s toughest critics – children and preteens.
She saw that many students also enjoyed reading about birds and animals, their care, habitats and general well-being, especially when a few added catchy rhymes here and there made reading sessions interesting and alive.
In 2012 her job was localised and as things often happen, this unforeseen occurrence led to a new chapter in her life. To remain motivated, she wrote down everything she could remember about her family's pets – their little habits and characteristics.
For example, the character of the working-dog hero in Fauna Park Tales is based on the different traits of every single dog her family ever owned. Researching habits, habitats and interesting titbits about martial eagles and eagle owls, as well as many smaller birds such as crimson-breasted shrikes and hoopoes,made it easier to illustrate them and tell a believable story. Her illustrations appear throughout Fauna Park Tales.
Maretha Botha admits to being a chocoholic and unreformed coffee addict, a keen gardener and bird watcher, who likes to walk on the moors where the stiff breeze coming in from the sea, quickly clears her head, making way for more inspiration.
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Looks like a lot of fun, Maretha! Is that your illustration of the cats and rabbit? That one really caught my eye! I have never attended any SCBWI events. I keep meaning to, but now I will make of point of it after seeing how much interaction and fun there is to be had! Cute finger puppets!
Congrats on getting picked to display your work and thank you for sharing this with us!

It was fun, thanks DL. I Interacted with so many people and some of the children were great. I didn’t plan to do book sales, because I at first didn’t plan to attend, but when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t but accept. There are however opportunities to sell your prints and books, so for me this was more a fact finding Fun Day,🎉🐹🎉